1. Field of the Disclosure
The present invention relates in general to building products and, in particular, to a panelized siding product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Natural material such as wood shake is used as a building product to cover a substrate of a building, such as a wall. The wood shake provides the function of covering and protecting the wall of the building. In addition, the wood shake has an aesthetically appealing appearance.
Wood shake is traditionally formed from wood such as cedar. Wood shake is relatively expensive to produce because it requires harvesting and splitting of wood, which is time consuming, labor intensive, and results in excess unused wood that is not suitable for shake.
In addition, wood shake is relatively expensive and labor intensive to install. Several individual pieces of wood shake are first mounted to the substrate in a row. Care is taken to space each of the wood shake from each to accommodate for expansion and retraction of the wood shake due to atmospheric changes. A layer of felt is then mounted to the substrate overlapping a portion of the row of wood shake. Then a second row of wood shake is mounted to the substrate overlapping the felt such that the felt interleaves the two rows of shake. This configuration is repeated such that several rows of wood shake interleaved with felt cover the substrate.
With wood shake, the interleaved felt is intended to prevent wind and blowing precipitation from blowing between adjacent pieces of wood shake and below overlapping pieces of wood shake. As such, the felt reduces water logging of the wood shake and water intrusion to the substrate and acts as an insulator. However, as stated above, the material and installation associated with the interleaved felt is relatively expensive and labor intensive.
In addition, attempts to produce polymeric building products to have an appearance that simulates the look of natural material have had limited success. In particular, improvements in the texture and color of the polymeric building product continue to be of interest. Accordingly, improvements in building products that simulate natural materials continue to be of interest.